“What is bad for the heart is good for art. The terrible irony of our lives as artists.” –– Jandy Nelson, I’ll Give You the Sun
Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You The Sun is the exquisitely written story of Noah and Jude, a pair of twins that once shared a soul but now barely know each other. The book ebbs and flows with their cycles of hatred and love and bitterness and forgiveness as they age into young adulthood.
I’ll Give You The Sun is first and foremost a homage to art. Noah and Jude are both visual artists, inspired by their late mother. She is the catalyst of an ongoing and underlying competition that grows and evolves between the two where every challenge, every argument, every bout of bitterness and hatred that arises between them is symbolized by their art and creative visions.
Not only does I’ll Give You The Sun revolve around Noah and Jude’s love for art, Nelson’s writing itself is art transposed into words, to put it simply. Somehow, she manages to bend the English language to wrap perfectly around the minds of Noah and Jude. Frankly, Nelson could write 500 pages about nothing and I would read it solely for her words and metaphors and the way they seamlessly fall into pictures in my mind. The reader truly finds themself in Noah and Jude’s world; it’s actually startling how perfectly Nelson captures the relationship between the twins. The downward spiral of “NoahandJude” and their subsequent yearning to love each other again is the true lifeblood of the story. While the actions and events of the book are interesting in how they overlap and connect over the years, the essence of I’ll Give You The Sun is encompassed by Noah and Jude as their own family and their unadulterated passion for art and love.